Cycle Build Sequence Button

posted on November 3rd, 2011, 12:18 am

I've heard before of ideas to have a button to make a build queue in a yard continue forever (can't remember how well they were received tho), so u dont hav to requeue, but of course that encourages a lakk of fleet diversity. What about a button to set the current queued sequence to repeat continuously (like, if I put Intrepid, Monsoon, Monsoon, Canaveral in queue, it will build that sequence over and over)?

posted on November 3rd, 2011, 12:33 am

What about a button to set the current queued sequence to repeat continuously (like, if I put Intrepid, Monsoon, Monsoon, Canaveral in queue, it will build that sequence over and over)?

Excellent idea 

posted on November 3rd, 2011, 3:04 am

There are a couple RTS's that have used the "infinite build" int the queue, such as Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends. Having the ability to make a set group repeat would be cool. 

posted on November 3rd, 2011, 7:52 pm

How about an option of preset teams. E.g. 2 saber and 1 Canaveral

posted on November 3rd, 2011, 8:02 pm

that is essentially what you would get if you click on two sabers and a canaveral, and hit the repeat button.
I like it, spam without any need to refill the production!
I don't know if it is possible to code this tho...

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on November 3rd, 2011, 9:32 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on November 3rd, 2011, 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It should be quite possible, you'd just need to add to the queue whichever ship just finished being produced (technically, add the ship that has reached a finished state to the end of the queue before you delete it from the beginning, but to the player this would appear simultaneous) if the button is active.
Assuming that the ship build queue is handled in a relatively logical programming way, that's one if-statement in the section of code for when a ship finishes building, then one line in the if for adding the beginning to the end of the queue.
Should look something (not quite the same, as this code is for C++, and IIRC A2 was done in C. There may also be things such as adding the ship build image and such that may need to be handled as you add to the queue, but that's not much more code if things are handled well) like this:
//section for producing a ship
...
//section for ship done building
if(cycleButton)
  buildQueue.push_back(buildQueue.front());
//section for creating finished ship and removing it from the queue
...

This would reorder the queue each time a ship is produced in a sort of circular left shifting, but that is probably better than having the queue deplete and then suddenly return to what was entered, as the restoring way would make it hard to know what was in the queue.

Of course, it's possible that more has to be done due to the way the devs have to work with the A2 engine, but it is a very very simple operation.